Indian Economy Quiz: Labour Codes and Social Security

The correct answer is B, twenty-nine. The four codes subsume twenty-nine central labour enactments: four in the Code on Wages, three in the Industrial Relations Code, nine in the Code on Social Security and thirteen in the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. Option A is wrong because twelve is far short of the number and corresponds to no stage of the exercise. Option C is wrong, though it is a tempting figure, because forty-four was the number of central labour laws often quoted as existing on the statute book before the reform, not the number brought into the codes. Option D is wrong because fifty-two matches neither figure. The simplest way to hold this in memory is the series four, three, nine and thirteen, which adds to twenty-nine and also tells you how large each code is.

The correct answer is B, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020. These three Acts dealt with the registration of unions, the conditions of service to be published as standing orders, and the machinery for disputes, lay-off, retrenchment and closure, and all three subjects are now in one code. Option A is wrong because the Code on Wages carries the Payment of Wages, Minimum Wages, Payment of Bonus and Equal Remuneration Acts. Option C is wrong because the Code on Social Security carries the provident fund, state insurance, maternity benefit, gratuity and compensation laws. Option D is wrong because the safety code carries the Factories Act, the Mines Act, the Contract Labour Act and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act among others. Noting the three largest Acts in each code is the quickest way to answer such questions.

The correct answer is D, three hundred workers. The code raises the threshold from the earlier figure and also makes three hundred the point at which certified standing orders become compulsory, so one number serves two provisions. Option A is wrong because fifty is the threshold for the contract labour provisions of the safety code, a different subject. Option B is wrong because one hundred was the threshold under Chapter VB of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, which the code replaces; candidates who revised from older material pick this. Option C is wrong because two hundred appears in none of the codes. The policy argument on both sides should also be known: employers call it flexibility to hire and adjust, while trade unions call it a dilution of protection against retrenchment.

The correct answer is A, the Code on Social Security, 2020. It defines a gig worker as one who works outside a traditional employer-employee relationship, a platform worker as one who gets work through an online platform, and an aggregator as the digital intermediary that connects buyer and seller, and it provides a social security fund for such workers. Option B is wrong because the Code on Wages deals with minimum wages, bonus and the payment of wages, though its coverage of all employees also benefits informal workers. Option C is wrong because the Industrial Relations Code is about unions, standing orders and disputes. Option D is wrong because the safety code deals with registration, safety, hours and welfare facilities. Aggregators contribute one to two per cent of their turnover to the fund.

The correct answer is B, the Central Government. It fixes a floor wage after taking into account the minimum living standards of a worker, and may set different floor wages for different geographical areas; no state may then fix a minimum wage below that floor. Option A is wrong because states fix minimum wages, not the floor wage, and the whole purpose of a national floor is to stop a race to the bottom between states. Option C is wrong because the Reserve Bank's mandate is monetary policy, currency and banking regulation, with no role in wage fixation. Option D is wrong because a Finance Commission recommends the sharing of central taxes and grants between the Union and the states for a five-year period. Minimum wages are to be reviewed at intervals not exceeding five years.

The correct answer is C, the Concurrent List. Entry 22 covers trade unions and industrial and labour disputes, Entry 23 social security and social insurance including employment and unemployment, and Entry 24 the welfare of labour including conditions of work and provident funds, so both Parliament and the state legislatures can legislate, and each state notifies its own rules under the codes. Option A is wrong because the Union List deals with defence, foreign affairs, railways, banking and the like. Option B is wrong because the State List covers public order, police, land, agriculture and public health, though labour welfare is often wrongly placed there. Option D is wrong because residuary powers under Article 248 apply only to matters in none of the three lists, and labour is expressly listed.

The correct answer is C, twenty-six weeks. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 originally provided twelve weeks; the amendment of 2017 raised it to twenty-six weeks for the first two children, and the Code on Social Security carries that provision forward along with a creche facility in larger establishments. Option A is wrong because twelve weeks is the older entitlement and now applies only in the limited cases the law specifies, such as a woman with two or more surviving children. Option B is wrong because sixteen weeks matches no Indian provision. Option D is wrong because fifty-two weeks, a full year, is the kind of entitlement some other countries give, partly unpaid, and has never been the Indian figure. The benefit is paid at the rate of the average daily wage.

The correct answer is B, twenty workers with power and forty without power. The code doubles the thresholds of the Factories Act, 1948, the argument being that small units were burdened with compliance meant for larger ones, while the criticism is that many workers now fall outside the factory provisions. Option A is wrong because ten and twenty were the figures under the Factories Act, 1948, and that is the trap in this question. Option C is wrong because thirty and sixty appear nowhere in the code. Option D is wrong because the definition of a factory still turns on whether a manufacturing process uses power; fifty is the threshold for the contract labour provisions instead. The same code also requires an appointment letter for every worker.

The correct answer is B, fourteen days. The code extends to all industrial establishments the requirement, earlier limited to public utility services, that no person shall go on strike and no employer declare a lock-out without fourteen days' notice, and the strike must begin within sixty days of that notice. A strike is also barred while conciliation proceedings are pending and for a period after proceedings before a tribunal. Option A is wrong because seven days relates to the period after the conclusion of conciliation proceedings, not to the notice itself. Option C is wrong because thirty days appears in other labour provisions such as notice of retrenchment, not here. Option D is wrong because sixty days is the outer limit within which the strike must start and the bar that follows tribunal proceedings.

The correct answer is A, fifteen days' wages last drawn. The code sets up a Worker Re-skilling Fund to which the employer contributes fifteen days' wages for every retrenched worker, and the amount is to be credited to that worker's account within forty-five days of retrenchment so that it can be used while finding new work. Option B is wrong because one month's wages is the pay in lieu of notice that may become due on retrenchment, a separate payment. Option C is wrong because three months' wages matches no provision of the code. Option D is wrong because the contribution is measured against the worker's own last drawn wages rather than fixed as a flat national sum. This provision is new; the Industrial Disputes Act had no re-skilling fund at all.

The correct answer is B, the 42nd Amendment, 1976. It inserted several Directive Principles, among them Article 43A on the participation of workers in the management of industrial undertakings, Article 39A on equal justice and free legal aid, and Article 48A on the protection of the environment. Option A is wrong because the 24th Amendment of 1971 affirmed Parliament's power to amend any part of the Constitution. Option C is wrong because the 44th Amendment of 1978 undid much of the Emergency-era changes and moved the right to property out of the Fundamental Rights. Option D is wrong because the 86th Amendment of 2002 inserted Article 21A on the right to education. Articles 41, 42 and 43 on the right to work, humane conditions and a living wage were in the Constitution from the beginning.

The correct answer is C, three thousand rupees. The scheme, launched in 2019, is open to an unorganised worker between eighteen and forty years of age with a monthly income up to fifteen thousand rupees, and gives an assured monthly pension of three thousand rupees after sixty on a matching contribution, the worker and the government each paying half. Option A is wrong because one thousand rupees is the lowest of the slabs under the Atal Pension Yojana, a different scheme. Option B is wrong because two thousand rupees is also an Atal Pension Yojana slab. Option D is wrong because five thousand rupees is the highest Atal Pension Yojana slab, which often misleads candidates who have revised the two schemes together. Both are administered with the pension fund regulator's machinery.